IU Protest Encampment: PHOTOS

April 30, 2024

 

Note: see post from April 26 and two from yesterday, April 29.

17-year-old puppy Shadow and I decided to walk 1.5 miles again to the, I presume, now “authorized” encampment, to see what we could see. Would we see anything? Would the encampment be gone?

Nope. Not even the steady rain, for about four hours yesterday evening, seemed to have dampened spirits.

Graduation ceremonies slated for May 2 and 3.

It will be interesting to see if the protest, with encampment, extends beyond the academic year, and if so, will it morph?

I’m put in mind of Occupy Bloomington, back in 2011-2012. I must have put up 100 posts during that time on exopermaculture.com, all featuring that memorable protest movement that began in New York City and spread and spread until it appeared it might become truly a national revolution. Until one weekend, when all of a sudden, some hidden central authority apparently dictated to the police in all the cities and towns that held those encampments, that they must go. NOW.

Here’s one of the posts I put up back then.

Final Visit with (first) Occupy Bloomington encampment

The Occupy Movement gave us the “We are the 99%” slogan, ignited by David Graeber (now deceased), who gave us, among other works,

and, with David Wengrow, this monumental opus, composed via their ten-year email text exchange, after which, upon publication, Graeber suddenly (and mysteriously) died . . .

I devoured them both, in 2012 and 2022.

Okay so here’s four photos from today’s walk.

It’s about the same size as before, not very big, and today holds a peaceful aura.

 

 

 

 

OOPS! Crucial correction to this morning’s post, plus Ben Garrison cartoon and comment

April 29, 2024

 

I’ve now read more local stories, these from today’s Herald-Times, and I realize that I got one thing wrong, which created a context that I also need to reconfigure.

My mistake was this: I thought the Wednesday night dictum from on high at IU said that encampments were not allowed. But what it actually said was, without prior authorization. And of course, those who attended the protest the next day mostly didn’t know, or were confused by the new rule, since it went against what has been in place since 1969, re: Dunn Meadow and protests, some of them with encampments. So, since there was no prior authorization — and how long would that take, not at all clear — the encampment was declared illegal, and state police then did their dirty work with, I read, much more force than necessary, since no one at the protest was violent.

The wordy address that President Whitten put out yesterday, within which I featured one paragraph —

— was an instantiation of the policy that the admin had just changed, on Wednesday evening; yes, an “existing policy,” but extremely recent.

Given what I now have learned, the mayor’s remarks on “unauthorized” encampments need to be seen in this light. That was the whole point: to make a distinction between authorized and unauthorized encampments, a new distinction, apparently, that was first made the night before the protest began, and basically ensured that Thursday’s protest anyway, would be pronounced illegal.

Now, on to what Ben Garrison thinks about this entire situation that has college students nationwide so riled up. It echoes my own view, frankly, except that I do appreciate that at least they are, at least for the moment, being with one another, rather than just solipsistic on phones. Plus, I totally appreciate their demand, their impossible dream, that rather than “expand their partnership,” the university split ways with Crane Naval Surface Warfare Center.